Rising Sun, Beverly Hills

My mother has lost her faith. In Chinese restaurants in the city, that is. She believes the white man has lemon-chickenised proper Cantonese cuisine in Chinatown (I believe it's salt and pepper squid now, Mum), and now she must venture further afield when the situation calls for a big family gathering.

So, we've landed in Beverly Hills. Now, don't get all LA on me and think this is some glamazon area full of mansions and things. Why in the world would we get 'real' Chinese food there?? Beverly Hills in Sydney is an area famous for fierce competition of Chinese restaurants. On the main King Georges Rd, restaurants square up for battle of the lowest prices. For this round, we visited Rising Sun, the two-storey behemoth of Beverly Hills.

Now, there's a set menu for gatherings of Cantonese people on special occasions. Here it is.

Shark's fin soup ($2 per bowl)

I don't care if it's fake shark fin! There I said it. Isn't it better if it's man-made? That means no poor sharks are being killed for their fin, right? I do slightly mind that they put too much corn starch in it, so thickened it was that it could be hardly called a soup, and more of a...gloop? And the 'crab meat' also had the tiniest hint of a bitterness. But did you read it? 2 buckaroos! I mean, get real. It does taste pretty much like shark's fin soup, so I'm happy. Very happy.

Shark's fin soup close-up

Lobster Sashimi

And for the main event, lobster sashimi! For those who say they don't like lobster sashimi, I only have one word for them, pah! Too bad, that they can't appreciate the sheer plump sweetness of lobster that is all but swamped when the spiny thing is cooked. The transcluscent clumps of meat have such a wonderful texture, a crunchy yet jelly-like feel that makes me want to weep for more.

Now for all you out there who like their sashimi smothered in wasabi and soy sauce, I've always wanted to ask one question. Why don't you just get any piece of food and cover it with the sauce? The taste of sashimi is so delicate and subtle, that a slight swipe of the wasabi to accent the flavour, is more than enough. So think about that next time. Don't waste your money on expensive sashimi if you're not going to taste it. Okay, my rant's over. Those are my two cents on the table.


Lobster with ginger and shallot, with e-fu noodles.

Secound round lobster - traditional Cantonese style. In my opinion, this is by far the most popular way to eat lobster for the Chinese. I guess our version of the lobster mornay in terms of popularity. It's lobster wok-tossed in a thickened ginger and shallot sauce, with garlic. E-fu noodles are placed on the bottom to soak up all that lobster-y goodness. Traditionally, noodles (because of their length) symbolise longevity, so they're usually eaten on birthdays, but we just like it because it's a good way of solving the 'wanting to lick the plate clean' problem. We're not a family of food wasters, no way.

I can't really provide taste comments, as ongoing dental problems prevented me from cracking that particular shell. But judging from my entire family's sauce-covered hands, it was finger-lickin' good.


Roasted pigeon, accompanied with Worcestershire sauce and salt, pepper and MSG combo.

This is another family favourite, pigeon roasted with soy sauce. Don't worry, these aren't the germ-infested pigeons you see in the public parks, but it's a game bird, especially bred for eating. The texture of the meat is like duck, and quite lean. There's a slight gamey taste, but I don't think this is strong enough to put anyone off, least of all me. Here was a good example, the skin was nicely crunchy, but not too overdone so as to dry out the meat.


Salt and pepper eel


As proud. card-carrying Chinese, we're not as naff as to order salt and pepper squid, oh no. Though I do like a good salt and pepper calamari every now and then. This is the hardcore version, salt and pepper eel. The batter was quite light and crunchy, but I think it lacked a bit of a flavour oomph. However, the eel inside was juicy and nicely contrasted the exterior. Slightly more adventurous diners should definitely give this one a go.

We had quite a few more things, mainly vegetarian dishes, but by this time I was too annoyed at my inability to eat these to take many photos. Overall, for ten people, the damage came in at around $400. Which is quite good, considering we ate all the main things, including Peking duck, which unfortunately was pre-sliced, so not worth a picture.


So, for 'real', good value Chinese, don't go past this place. I know they have peach coloured table cloths, I know they have Chinese TV blaring both corners of the room, and their toilets deserve a dishonorable mention, but the food is tasty. Go for the food.




Rising Sun, King Georges Rd, Beverly Hills

Ichigo Daifuku

Now, I've never been very good with my hands. When I was in primary school, we had to make a glasses case for Father's Day, embroidered with our dad's name, with chain stich (or at least I think that's what it was called). With my obvious disadvantage, being retarded in the area of craft-handiness, I was working extra hard. After half an hour of solid work, I got up, and looked down. Only to find that I had embroidered the thing onto my dress as well as the glasses case.

This is a hilarious anecdote, still recalled by my friends whenever my name and handicrafts pop up in the same sentence.

So fully aware of my disability, I've always been wary of cooking. But I was entirely seduced by the seemingly effortlessness of Obachan's ichigo daifuku that I had to have a go.

Daifuku is a type of wagashi, which is a Japanese sweet. These are mochi (glutinous rice cake) filled with an assortment of traditional Japanese flavourings, such as azuki (red bean, my dessert arch-nemesis). These are traditionally served at tea ceremony, as a counterpoint to the frothy and bitter matcha used.

Daifuku (大福餅, Daifukumochi) means good luck, and can be given at special occasions. Ichigo means strawberry.

Obachan's recipe called for shiroan, a white bean paste. Searching high and low at my local Asian grocery, I found all sorts of interesting paste-like things, but none were white bean. So, being the versatile cook that I am, I substituted it with a flavour that's familiar to Asian kids everywhere, hopefully. Lotus paste is traditionally used in moon cakes and sweet buns. It's a tan colour, with a texture that is similar to azuki paste, and has a light, sweet flavour with a slight accent of caramel, due to its process of being cooked with caramalised sugar.

Unfortunately, due to my exceptionally messy hands, I couldn't take pictures of the process.

The biggest challenge was the stickiness of the glutinous rice mixture. Man, they don't call it glutinous for nothing, do they? It's pretty difficult to get all of it out of the bowl and testing of my upper body strength to knead it properly.

Also, the properties of mochi are highly mysterious. Its rubbery tecture makes it really hard to make it into a thin disc, big enough to wrap around the filling of strawberry and lotus paste. And when you do, and try to pinch together the edges to form a seal, it's quite tricky to make it stick together, even though it sticks pretty darn well to the mixing bowl.

Anyway, it was a pretty laborious task, but I got it done eventually, and the results weren't half-bad, according to my guinea pig #1, my ever lovable grandma/sous chef.

So here you go, ichigo daifuku.

Definitely not as pretty as Obachan's, but not horrendously inedible either. I tentatively call it a success. But I'll report back after further testing. Tonight we're having a big family dinner, so I've made one for everyone (evil laugh).

Edit: Well, everyone approved! I made them all eat the daifuku before dinner, so they'd be more likely to think it was nice on an empty stomach (good marketing ploy, eh)? Both my aunts asked me for my recipe, too and complimented me on the texture of the mochi skin.

So, to my friends, hopefully you'll be lucky enough to taste my daifuku some time in the near future. Thanks again to Obachan for a recipe that made my family smile.

Bar Italia

So, for my first sojourn into solid food again, we had dinner at an old stalwart of Leichhardt, Bar Italia. It was one of those sweltering Sydney days, with the temperature reaching 39 degrees.

Now, it is a fact of life that in Sydney Italian restaurants, many of the kitchen staff are Asian.
And like most facts of life, it is generally better not to question them.

Bar Italia is on the main Norton St strip, and is famed for its gelato, although its pastas are praised amongst locals. Sunday dinner crowd was mainly families and friends, the slightly-sticky evening didn't deter anyone from sitting in the back courtyard area, with its lush foliage, making themselves a meal for the mosquitos out en force.

Now, people don't come to Bar Italia for the decor, with its kitsch posters of Marilyn Munroe, the Beatles and mob films such as Goodfellas. It's more of a order-at-the-counter kind of place.

We ordered a fettucine amatriciana, fettucine bosciola and a spaghetti Bar Italia, plus a garden salad and garlic bread. However, I made the dumbest rookie foodblogging mistake of all time. I got too excited at the food and forgot to take photos until halfway through. So now I shall present pictures of half-eaten food. Sorry.

Spaghetti Bar Italia- prawns, parsley, bacon, chilli ($13)

Garden Salad

What's left of the fettucine bosciola. Haha. ($11.50)

The lone piece of garlic bread standing

I didn't get a photo of the fettucine amatriciana, which was in too sorry a state to be photographed. Now, if there's one word to describe the dishes at Bar Italia, it would be hearty. The flavours are bold, simple and don't apologise for being traditional.

I'm not a huge fan of tomato based pasta sauces (shock, horror), but I found the amatriciana had a slight burr from the chilli and the bacon really upped the flavour quotient. The fettucine was nicely al dente, although I wish the fettucine was a little less wide.

The bosciola was great comfort food. Creamy and indulgent, with diced ham and mushrooms giving accent to the sauce. Here, I think the wide fettucine actually served a purpose, collecting more creamy sauce.

The spaghetti Bar Italia, well, it's a favourite of my parents because the style is quite reminiscent of a chow mein. It's a dry pasta, with prawns, bacon, chilli and a whole heap of garlic, all sauteed.

The quality of the prawns in the pasta, and the produce in general, is to be expected from a suburban Italian restaurants that cater for the local neighbourhood palate, mainly frozen. Now, I'm not being a food snob and saying that's a bad thing. For the price we paid, and the quantity of food, I think it's reasonable to have frozen prawns in a pasta dish. I can attest to the quality of the prawns in the garlic prawns that Bar Italia also serves, which are plump and fresh and bounce off the teeth.

One area where quality of produce shines here is the gelato. An array of flavours err on the creamier side, with tiramisu, chocolate, coffee, hazelnut, Bounty, Toblerone and pistachio. Sorbets included mango, watermelon, lemon, etc. Now, I'm a firm believer of the non-mix rule of ice-cream. That is, thou shalt not mix fruity flavours and creamy flavours in the same cup.

For the eat-in dish, there's a maximum of four scoops for $8. We chose 2 scoops of pistachio, coffee and tiramisu. Luckily, I learnt my lesson and took photos before devouring the only thing I could eat with confidence in the meal (wisdom teeth, remember?)

The creaminess of the gelato, combined with the clean, strong flavours really hits the spot, especially for those with a sore mouth. The pistachio had tiny bits of the nuts running through, which was a good contrast to the smoothness of the gelato. Tiramisu had some chocolate cake in it, which I think was soaked in brandy. That slight alcoholic flavour paired really well with the ice cream.

While I was buying the gelato, I saw the staff preparing iced coffee. It was basically using a glass as a scoop, and getting half a glass of coffee gelato and then pouring some coffee in it. Definitely a thing to try if you haven't stuffed your face with the mains. Iced chocolate is the same idea, for those non-coffee lovers (philistines, you!).


While Bar Italia definitely isn't a high-class establishment, there's always a time and place for this kind of comfort eating, pasta that every Italian cuisine cliche is built upon. And for that, Bar Italia definitely has a place in Sydneysiders' hearts.

Double Bay Woodfire Restaurant

For my Last Supper before I get an operation to extract my wisdom teeth, I had wanted to go to JuJu's in Kings Cross, but they're closed on a Monday night. So driving down New South Head Rd, I finally settled on Double Bay Woodfire Restaurant, for pizza.

It's quite a cosy restaurant, with lifesize statues of chefs grinning and holding pizza boxes outside. There's also an area set up for a band, and posters for various shows.

The whole place feels like a classy neighbourhood joint, with lots of people coming in and greeting other diners like old friends.

The menu is in two parts; the first is fairly standard pizza and pasta fare and the second is slanted towards Hungarian food, with hearty sounding goulash and 'gypsy' pancakes and the like.

The service was harried, and the place seemed understaffed. Even worse, a waiter spilled piping hot pasta down a woman's back, and even joked about it with other diners a scant ten minutes later. This was particularly poor behaviour as the poor woman whose night had been ruined's family were still present.

We ordered a smoked salmon pizza, a supreme pizza, wedges and a Caesar salad.

The pizzas were...okay. I felt that the crusts and the toppings weren't bonded together enough with cheese and the cursts weren't that fluffy and rather hard instead of crispy. Both pizzas lacked cheese, but the smoked salmon one bore this marginally better with large pieces of salmon accentuated by a sprinkling of dill.

However, when we got the pizzas, they weren't as hot as should a straight-out-of-woodfired-oven pizzas should be. Coupled with the distinct lack of cheesiness made the pizzas seem rather dry.

The wedges were lovely though. Thoroughly fried, the potato was fluffy and had that melting sensation, rather than a powdery feel that comes to undercooked wedges. Not enough sweet chili sauce though, pity.

The caesar salad was also good, with a creamy, but not too heavy dressing. Also quite a few anchovies, which I am a fan of. However, the cos lettuce, in my opinoin was cut up too small, so it was a bit difficult to get a good forkful.

Overall, a slightly underwhelming experience for a last supper. Oh well, this means no more foodblogging for a week while my poor teeth recuperate. General anaesthesia, eek!

I apologise for no photos this time, too. As it was my inaugural post, I thought I would try my hand. But when I got there, and pressed the shutter to take the photo of the pizza, two little words popped up: Battery Exhausted. Game over. Next time, eh? For 'celebration of recuperation dinner' I shall be ready...!